gum acacia control - (Feb/27/2010 )

hi all

i am trying to see the therapeutic effect of withania somnifera (ashwagandha) in an inflammatory disorder and for that i am making a suspension of ashwagandha root powder in 2% gum acacia..is it mandatory to include the group given gum acacia only? to check weather gum acacia is causing the antiinflammatory effect...

thanks...

It is an appropriate control to include a gum-acacia only group of patients. Ideally your would do this as a double-blind test so that both you and the patient don't know which treatment they are getting... this is so that you don't bias the results by looking for a response in the "treatment" group.

hi bob..thanks for the help actually i am working on mice...ok then i should include gum acacia only group...is it possible to do double blind study in animals?

bob1 on Mar 2 2010, 04:16 PM said:

Well, you can't really do a double blind in animals, but you can do a blind study - have someone put your test and control drugs in identical tubes labeled "A" "B" "C" so that you can't tell which is which... and then you administer the drugs and record the data for each group. Then analyse the data using the same analysis for each data set. If you find a significant difference - then get the person to tell you which tube was which.